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All
Saints, Salhouse

The frigid
February day laid a heavy hand on my heart, a
touch not lightened by a succession of locked
churches. Quite frankly, we'd had enough, and so
we headed north into the broads, where the
landscape softened and I felt more at home,
knowing this to be a land of open churches. We
arrived in Salhouse, the village strung on the
ridge that separates the marshes from the broads,
and beyond it in the fields was Salhouse church.

Locked. I almost cried in
despair. It seemed as if Norfolk had closed down
for the winter, the churches little better than a
film set waiting for the tourists to arrive.

There was a sign telling
us that everything on the premises was security coded,
and that there were no valuables; but the notice was
superfluous of course, because there wasn't even a
keyholder. I wondered if the parish were heeding
Churchwatch's advice that a locked church is more likely
to have something stolen from it than an open one, and
were hoping that any burglar might read the sign before
breaking and entering.

Up to now, a part of me
had put up with being locked out. As Bill Bryson once
famously observed of bad service in a restaurant, I never
really mind if a church is locked - it makes me feel
better when I come to moan about it. But here at Salhouse
I was keen to see inside, because I had read so much
about this place. And it didn't seem right, a Broadland
church locked.

I don't want you to think
I am moaning about this church. Alright, I moan a lot.
But as things turned out, the visit here was one of the
happiest of the day. Mind you, this was the same day that
we went to Lingwood - but that's another story.

I rattled the door
optimistically, and then stepped back out into the wintry
air. It was trying to snow, the sheep across the Salhouse
road huddling miserably in the flurries. I stood outside
the porch with its grinning green man above the entrance,
and rang the churchwarden. He listened carefully, and was
very polite. Apparently, the police demanded that at
present the church was kept locked. He'd be happy to come
and open up, but not for three quarters of an hour. We
arranged a time, and headed off to do neighbouring Woodbastwick, which was open, and had a proud
sign saying so.

Heading back, we shot
envious glances at the people going into the pub beside
the Woodbastwick brewery. We'd planned to do Salhouse and
then settle in front of the open fire there, but here we
were heading back up to the ridge again.

The churchwarden who
greeted us outside the church was a very affable old
gentleman with an old-fashioned moustache. We quickly
realised we had fallen on our feet; unusually, he knew a
lot about his building, and was keen for us to see all
that there was to see. And he soon set on an explanation
of what is a central puzzle about Salhouse church.

The tower here, as you can
see, is very squat. It was clearly intended to be taller,
and so is either taken down or unfinished. Will evidence
shows that the latter is the case, and it was the
Reformation, with its removal of the need for bequests,
that interrupted the funding for the work. However, there
is another puzzle. If you look from the east, as in the
main photograph above, you can see that the tower is
offset, and a large tower arch peeps above the roofline
of the nave. Clearly, the intention was to rebuild the
nave after the tower.

This is a curious way of
going about things, and is presumably a sign that the
rebuilding of the tower was considered the higher
priority. The north aisle of the church is very early,
the arcade dating from the 13th century. We may assume
that it would have been swept aside by the rebuilding
work. At the extreme west of the aisle, hidden in the
vestry, is a very curious massive archway, which may well
have opened into the tower of the original building,
perhaps a Saxon church on the site of the north aisle.

If they had finished the
early 16th century tower, it would have been very
opulent. As it is, it tops out directly above the belfry,
and the low brick parapet is a later addition. There are
magnificent sound holes with animals as the headstops to
the arches.

On this dull day it was
never going to be bright inside, and the low aisle hardly
helps; but this contributes to a sense of the ancient.
The 19th century restoration was heavy, but not
overwhelming, and in any case the Victorian glass is some
of the best in this part of Norfolk.One of the delights
of All Saints is that its interior is as eccentric and
curious as the outside; this is a real churchcrawlers'
church. Fascinating details include the capitals to the
arcade - the most westerly is a ring of heads, mostly
vandalised, but including the devil, who is not.

The pulpit has an unusual
hourglass holder, which for many years was converted into
a lamp, but now contains a (modern) glass again. The font
is a little odd, because the shaft is carved and
decorated, but the octagonal bowl is plain. Perhaps they
were not always together. The churchwarden confirmed
Mortlock's story that the font came from Woodbastwick at
the time of the rebuilding there, "but don't tell
them, because they might want it back!"

High on the south side of
the rood screen is a stirrup with a bell in it. If this
is medieval, it is a sanctus bell stirrup, and very
unusual; there are two in Suffolk, but I believe this to
be the only one in Norfolk. If it is original,
that is; we need to be aware that the Anglo-catholic
movement was strong in this part of Norfolk, and 19th
century Rectors were not always above falsifying medieval
details. I rather wish my photograph of it had come out,
but it didn't. In the chancel itself there is a good
misericord head, and that wonderful glass I mentioned.

The churchwarden was very
patient and generous with his time. He showed us the
early medieval stone coffin lid in the vestry; locked
away, but my photograph of that did come out. He
also suggested I go up the tower and take a look at the
bells - "but don't go out on the roof, I don't think
we are insured for that!"

I have a fear of heights,
but a fascination with church towers. It is a battle of
wills in which both wills are mine. I suppose that many
of us are fascinated by our fears. I took him up on his
offer, and climbed the ancient stairwell, passing
occasional slits opening out into the grey light.

Eventually, I came to the
neatly-kept bell stage. It seemed curious to see the
sound holes from the inside. The frame contains two
bells, the pre-Reformation inscription on the nearest
pleasingly clear, the date 1441. The other dates from the
17th century.

I carried on
up the stairway, but after another thirty steps or so it
came to a stop, the steps topped out in stone. Here was
where the money ran out. A small window gave out onto the
roof of the tower.

The low parapet
was terrifying, the air freezing, the wheeling
sleet enhancing the sense of vertigo. I nervously
took a photograph northwards from the top, and
then hurried back down again, grinning like the
green man. A small victory over myself.